Thursday, March 30, 2006

More links from others! Well, one other, at any rate. The Graveworm sends in a cool story about a Dutchman building a modern ark , along with a terrifying story about...well, here's the Graveworm's summary.
Did you see the "Abolition of Parliament Bill" floated by Tony Blair in February?? Are they testing it out to see how it flies in another country before they do it here?

http://www.saveparliament.org.uk/

It's in the name of "efficiency," but in a nutshell, the ministers can change or CREATE any law they please WITHOUT having to go to parliament!!! W ... T ... F ... ???

So yes. That's a nice, reassuring thought. While we're on the subject, there's a brilliant (and gigantic) visualization showing where our taxes go. Unsurprisingly, most of it seems to go toward making things to kill people.

On to more cheerful, library-related happenings: the Flickr librarians are at it again! This time you're encouraged to make your own READ poster and add it to the pool. The Secret Library Workers Union has an especially great one.

A gorgeous tunnel of books makes up part of an exhibit (now closed, I think) at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Awesome photos.

Via LII: the Mid-Continent Public Library has put together a great database of juvenile book series. I found out that E.W. Hildick wrote over 20 McGurk mysteries, and I think I've only read ten. A quest! Huzzah! All the old favorite series are there, plus many more obscure ones.

Tomorrow we're off to Cinema Wasteland to mingle with the freaky people and show off the latest MCT productions. If you're in the Cleveland area this weekend, stop by and say hello! We're be back on Monday, or maybe Tuesday, depending on how wild of a time we have. See you then!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Today I am happy to present several links from others. Many thanks, everyone - today is pretty hectic and it was great to get such good links to share!

From Holly: people want to take their cell phones to the grave with them. People are demented.

From Tracy: My Therapy Buddy, for when emoticon pillows aren't enough to express your innermost thoughts and feelings.

From Danny, along the same lines of inspiration: Cre'atures by Timmeryn. So bizarre, and so cute!

Also from Tracy: Ask a Mexican. Heh.

If you like the idea of Google Maps and want to create your own personal version, Platial is the site to check. I think this could be a lot of fun, potentially.

I asked the Death Psychic, "Death Psychic, how will I die?" and it told me that I would be mauled to death by a rabid pit bull. That sounds about right.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Hi there. Folderol won't be updated on Friday, due to Cinema Wasteland shenanigans, so we're incorporating links from others throughout the week. And Danny sent in a great one: The A-Team intro, as portrayed by Dr. Who. Awesome!

Next week, Coca-Cola Blak makes its super-caffeinated debut here in the States. Are you ready?

A few weeks ago, Zazoo sent in the news about a newly discovered "furry" white lobster, now known as the Kiwa Hirsuta. He also said he wanted one. Well, now he can at least have a nice plush version.

If you like your plush fun to have more of a technological bent, you could check out the emoticon pillows. I'm thinking you could leave them around in order to let others know your current mood.

For the arty hippie type who hates capitalism but sort of likes Monopoly, Garden-opoly is the perfect game. Buy greenhouses instead of hotels! My Montessori school would have been all over this game if it had been out when I was young.

Another cool, artsy educational construction is the periodic table table. I think it'd be great to have one of these. I wonder if you can get additional parts when new elements are discovered.

Monday, March 27, 2006

The countdown to Cinema Wasteland has begun, and we're scrambling a bit...

Bjork and Matthew Barney are working on a film, and the trailer's now available for viewing. You know that it's going to be anything but normal.

Speaking of film, Matt Jones put up some storyboards and sketches from his work on The Corpse Bride.

Is Courtney Love another victim of the "first-born daughter" curse that runs in her family? Or is it just bad luck? (And will Frances Bean break the cycle? Let's hope so.)

Old wax seals make great jewelry inspiration, as it turns out.

And finally, I've been engrossed in Flickeur during my moments of down time. It takes random images from Flickr and zooms, pans, and intercuts haphazardly, but it's oddly soothing.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Today: links from others, plus some bonus material. Thanks, everyone!

From Dr. Matt the Commenter, aka Super Slow Man: Who Wants to Be a Superhero? This sounds a little like Watchmen gone horribly wrong...

From Zazoo: Northside is the hip place to be, once again. And it's getting better all the time!

From Bunny: Arcade flyers of the past! Some of these are completely bizarre.

Also via Bunny: Meet Cleaver Theatre is going to Cinema Wasteland next weekend, and we have the promo video which will be showing at our booth (table? corner?) to prove it.

More fun with YouTube: remember the Spike Jonze commercial for Levi's with "Tainted Love"? No? Well, here's your chance to discover it. This never fails to crack me up.

Special bonus site: the amazing Stewardess Uniform Collection. Ooooh. Ahhhh.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Librarian Alert! According to a rumor, Jeopardy! is looking for librarians to be contestants. The application page doesn't mention anything on this matter, but perhaps librarians have an inside edge on the competition. So go apply and do us proud! (Being front and center on a game show, with no puppets or costumes to hide behind, would be my own personal hell. So I will only encourage from the sidelines.)

As part of Women's History Month, I bring you the American Women Through Time site, which is very detailed and quite cool.

Copyright issues are dull. How to make them more exciting? Put them in comic form! Hey, it works for me, at any rate. They should do a crossover with Rex Libris sometime.

Visually-based search engines are the new rage, a la Grokker. The Visual Complexity site shows a myriad of different ways to display complex sets. Think of it as something akin to the internet of Cowboy Bebop, if that helps any.

The National Archives has a repository of CIA films, some of which are stranger than others. (Animal Farm?) I am sort of intrigued by the possibilities of what could be going on in 1967's Pilots in Pajamas.

The law librarians at the University of Dayton have a very cool weblog with a very cool name: Vox Bibliothecae. Hooray for weblogging law librarians!

Tomorrow: links from others.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Today: weird stuff from around (and beyond) the world.

In Georgia, there's a time capsule from 1940...that isn't to be opened until the year 8113. I wonder if there'll even be a Georgia at that time. (Found on the always fascinating Damn Interesting, which needs to go on the sidebar link list over there; the list is out of date, I know.)

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, a fire has been burning underground for over fifty years, destroying the town above. I'm thinking the spooky librarians may go on a road trip soon to check this out.

In Africa, a new ocean is forming. Wow.

This just in: the moon affects radon levels in homes, apparently. I think that perhaps we don't give the moon enough credit.

Some ad campaigns are more fun than others. Take the "it's no fun being dead" concept, for example. You can click all over the website for various fun things. I especially like the bits of dead people trying to play frisbee and whatnot.

Goths may object to the "no fun being dead" idea, but it's okay: the goths are going to inherit the earth after all! Woohoo! Crank up the Sisters of Mercy, fellow gothy types!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Today, we have AWESOME links. Improve your icky, icy day!

First off:


Behold, the Monster Name Decoder. You can even pick your own monster. (Mine is a banshee. I like banshees.)

A brilliant idea for reality shows: pre-pixelated clothing designs! Ha!

Fantastic frog links: if you have not seen the Muppet Matrix yet, oh my god, you should. I especially like Rowlf as Morpheus. If you like your frogs smaller and more robotic, check out the excellent adventure of Roomba Frogger. You know MIT is going to have some bizarre prank soon involving something like this.

Along the same real-life game thread as Frogger with Roombas, Scotland Yard (aka Mind the Detective) combines the Scotland Yard board game with the Toronto Transit System to create wonderful chaos. Next game is in July, evidently.

And finally, from the always-cool Baby Name Wizard, check out the map of popular names in your region. I thought the Ohio names were a little off, but then I looked at Kentucky and they were pretty much spot-on. I guess southern Ohio gets influenced by Kentucky more often than the reverse, at least in naming conventions.

Monday, March 20, 2006

Happy spring to everyone, from a city that's supposed to get four inches of snow tonight. Woohoo. On to visual arts!

Penmanship: I am so going to enter the World Handwriting Contest. Seriously, I am. Wish me luck.

Architecture: A new set of apartments in Tokyo are built with the idea that people should be uncomfortable, so they don't settle into a rut. Photos of the modular-looking buildings are on the main site of "Reversible Destiny." Interesting concept...

Photography: If you join the Pirate Rubber Duckie pool on Flickr, the Pirate Rubber Duckie will visit you eventually! Then you must photograph the adventures you have with him, and send him on his way. Duckies get all the fun.

Costume design: The Baseball Hall of Fame has an exhibit on baseball uniforms called "Dressed to the Nines." Hee.

Just plain cool art: Behold the amazing lenticular stamps, which put the holographic pictures of old to shame! The speed skater ones are especially cool.

Friday, March 17, 2006

It's Links from Others Day! Thanks, everyone!

From Holly: Aphorisms Galore!

From Bunny, the sounds of Generation X's youth: arcade video games, captured on a tape recorder and digitized for your enjoyment. The kids yelling in excitement throughout is a nice touch.

From the Sparkle Queen: absinthe! The New Yorker's article is not officially online yet, but Oxygenee has a scanned PDF.

From the Graveworm: a gnostic weblog. Yes!

From Tracy, our chemist operative out in the field: PartStore, a great source for replacing some things and creating others; freakily amazingly fantastic 3-D sidewalk drawings; and the "actor's journey" site of Michael Bailey Smith, also known as Belthazor on Charmed. (Tracy told me that. My Charmed knowledge is awfully limited).

Thanks again, everyone, and happy St. Patrick's Day! Have a spiffy weekend. See you Monday.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

Okay, yesterday got away from me, but now we're back!

For book lovers: Neglected Books helps you find the best overlooked or underrated books in several categories. This is a very cool idea. Also, check out Pierre Ouvard's bookbinding art, which takes book coverings to an entirely new (often three-dimensional) level.

For the sports people: in honor of the NCAA tournament which begins today, the College Basketball Archive provides any article you'd ever want. Well, probably, anyway.

For the Irish: fun St. Patrick's Day facts! Massachusetts has the highest population with Irish ancestry. My mother's family is from Massachusetts, and yes, it's very Irish.

For the medical researchers: browse through this list of presidential diseases, and be amazed at the various ailments. Lincoln was cross-eyed? Jefferson had Asperger Syndrome? Really? Also, Princeton sponsors a site where you can search for emergency contraception providers by zip code or city. (There are no providers in my zip code. Yikes.)

For the Appalachians, or those interested in Appalachian culture: the Appalachian Regional Commission has an online resource center that's full of great information.

Tomorrow: links from others!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The happiest of birthdays to Dr. Matt the Commenter!

(More soon. My schedule's all skewed today.)

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Today, it's all about good clean geeky fun.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Today is pretty sad and dreary all round, so let's try to perk it up a bit.

First off: Pac-Man is alive and well and living in a field somewhere. Isn't that good to know?

In the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, the DDD Project (Detroit, Demolition, Disneyland) is painting abandoned buildings a bright fluorescent orange. Not only does it get people's attention, it also looks kind of cool.

George Clooney tells liberals to stand up and be proud. It's always a relief to see that there are still liberals around there here parts. (My notes for this link just say "yay George.")

Nick Cave is getting recognition for his new movie and all-around Renaissance-man oeuvre, while Thomas Kinkade is getting sued and allegedly acting like a bitter, drunken lout. Ah, sometimes there's justice in the art world!

Meet Cleaver Theatre has joined the world of Flickr. Check out the photos we have up so far, and tune back in after we get back from Cinema Wasteland in a few weeks.

And if none of that has cheered you up and you're feeling as if the world is a hellish dark place of Boschian proportions...well then, make your own Bosch painting. (The site is in Dutch, but is easy to figure out; drag & drop various tortured characters onto a canvas. Fun for all!)

Friday, March 10, 2006

Today: links from others! Many thanks, everyone!

From Zazoo: a white lobster with blond "fur" has been found. Wow.

From the Graveworm: a funny and slightly disturbing remake of "Baby Got Back," only Christianized and retitled "Baby Got Book."

From Bunny: find out your wrestling name. I am apparently "Johnny Sicko," even though I told them I was female. Huh.

From a fellow librarian, feminist and bleeding-heart liberal: a weblog about the news and how frustrating it all is. You go, girl.

Dr. Matt the Commenter sent in so many good links that I'm just cutting and pasting his email:

The Darwin Digital Library of Evolution . Pretty cewl.
The Museum of RetroTechnology . Again, another awesome site that shows the creative process involved in invention.
The Music Genome Project . Perfect for bio-geeks such as myself. It can generate a music station for you based on your favorite song/artist. It’s not perfect.
Lastly, in sad news, Chloe won the Project Runway prize. Ugh. Bad 80’s prom dresses must be the rage in high fashion. I SO wanted Nick to win or Daniel V. (because they are eyecandy) but not Chloe. Yawn.

And there you have it. Have a spiffy weekend, everyone! See you Monday.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

So, with the extension of the Patriot Act, your library records are fair game for god knows how long. This just tempts me to check out the most subversive, bizarre combination of books possible to see if anything would happen. If I disappear one day, you'll know why!

Beat writer aficianados, take note: the New York Public Library has just acquired an archive of William S. Burroughs material, much of which has never been seen before by the public.

NPR now has a weblog of its own, titled Mixed Signals. Hooray!

An ambitious (and sort of halfway done) project, Vanished Libraries tracks what happened to libraries all over the world throughout history. Whether fires or politics did in the library, it's recorded here. This looks like it could be amazingly cool once the details are there!

Yahoo! has all sorts of neat little tricks behind the scenes, like their open shortcuts which let you abbreviate URLs or searches down to a few letters or words.

Everyone always needs more light when they read, but a lot of us hate fluorescent lights. For ambient lighting, Light Reading looks like an ordinary book during the day, but functions as a light when needed. How cool is this? You could make some really awesome light designs in a bookshelf!

Tomorrow: links from others!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Today, in the wake of the announcements about the Patriot Act and Tom Delay winning the primary and steroids in baseball and Iran promising "harm and pain," the links are all escapist in nature. I didn't really plan it that way, but my subconscious had other ideas, I suppose.

The Dans Le Noir restaurant, in which diners eat in pitch darkness, opened a London location a few weeks ago. I wonder if food tastes different when you can't see it.

If you'd like to check out London, or anywhere else, the Meet Me In site helps you figure out how to rendezvous with someone else coming from a different location.

Are stray shopping carts terrorizing your neighborhood? Fear not; just document them in the Stray Shopping Cart Project and then release them back into the wild!

If you ever wondered about the religious affiliations of various superheroes, supervillains, and extraneous comic book characters, wonder no more: an amazingly extensive list has been compiled for you! (Check out J. Jonah Jameson near the bottom. Hee.)

And lastly, a fantastic Lego Tarot. Please note that the Empress is a librarian! Woohoo!

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Ahem.

SPLINK!

After seeing this, I'm just going to go around yelling "SPLINK!" at random. Consider yourselves warned. Bunny also reports that SPLINK was mentioned in an episode of The Young Ones, which made no sense to us Americans until now. The SPLINK bit, I mean, not the whole show. Although there were probably Americans who were completely confused by everything in the show.

Danny points out that Margaret Atwood's Unotchit, which I mentioned a while ago, is now the subject of an article by Wired. It's called the Longpen now. Or maybe it's the Unotchit Longpen. Anyway.

The concept behind PodBot is a cool one: put in your city and find out what concerts are taking place around you, and subscribe to the feed so you're always in the know. The execution, however, still needs a little work. According to PodBot's map, Cincinnati is up on Lake Erie where Cleveland used to be. I don't know where Cleveland went. Maybe Pittsburgh. At any rate, I got a whole slew of Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati concert listings, so while the geography is suspect, the engine itself is good.

Batgirl has a wonderful tribute to Kirby Puckett. It's a sad day for baseball fans.

If you like penguins, you will love the penguin webcam. A lone penguin wandered past while I was watching, but you never know what will happen!

And if you like pinball and/or Legos, here's something wonderful: a Lego pinball machine. Wow.

SPLINK!

Monday, March 06, 2006

The consensus online seems to be that the Oscars were pretty dull this year (except for the surprise Crash win). Any agreement/disagreement? I didn't watch them (I haven't even seen any of the nominated movies), so I'm curious.

Music:
  • If you lived in Athens, Ohio during the '90s, you probably saw Tony Xenos perform at some point, whether it was with Cactus Pears, Rubberband Racecar Go, or on his own. Now he has his own website! I am stupidly excited to find out that I can get "Snowmen and Knit Hats" in mp3 form.
  • The Washington Post has just discovered the art of the mix tape. Golly! (Well, okay, the article is actually about digital "imixes" and how people are tagging songs in order to create specialized playlists. But still.)

Art:

Literature:

Random fun:

  • Make a scarf out of sweater arms. I want to see one made of 1980s sweaters, like Bill Cosby's. It would look like a color blindness test, or one of those "spot the hidden image" 3-D posters!

Friday, March 03, 2006

It's Links from Others Day! Thanks, everyone!

From the Graveworm: Which Shakespearean tragic heroine are you? Both he and I were Portia. We're interested to see if other people get other results.

From Glenna: merchandise courtesy of the Deadeye Dick (Cheney) Gun Club.

Also from Glenna: National Women's History Month is going on, as mentioned yesterday. In a related link, Danny sent in the National Women's History Museum site, which looks very cool.

From Holly: Hi, we live on Psycho Path. Weird.

Some random links found on the web this week: Jane Siberry has pared down all her belongings and is distributing her music in a really original manner; a county coroner has his own weblog (I lived in this town for a while!); and fellow ugly ducklings, rejoice: the ugly kids seem to turn out pretty well in the end.

Have a spiffy weekend, everyone. See you Monday!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Since I was gone last week, I missed the world premiere of the Laughing Librarian's Blogga Song. But in case you're like me and hadn't seen it yet (especially if you read a lot of library weblogs), it's not to be missed!

Then, after hearing the song, you can argue with other library types about whether or not the A-listers were mentioned more than the B-listers. Or something like that. I don't think Folderol even qualifies for the list in the first place, so I can sit back with some popcorn and watch it all. Heh.

Ask Jeeves is now plain old ask.com, and Jeeves has retired. What should he do with his newfound free time? I like the carbonite option myself.

This one's for Glenna: it's Women's History Month, dammit, and here are some important facts!

Ancient devastation: Pompeii is reconstructed and re-examined in the Smithsonian. Recent devastation: look at photos from libraries in southern Mississippi, and consider helping out if you can.

Found on lii.org: a whole site devoted to Jewish mystery stories!

Tomorrow: links from others.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Okay, who doesn't want a hidden passageway in their home? I don't know where we could install one, or where it could go, but I think it would be awesome!

The ravens at the Tower of London have been moved inside due to fears of bird flu. Did you know the ravens all have names? And that one of them can TALK?

(Incidentally, how cool would it be to have a talking raven inside a hidden passageway?)

Meanwhile, the death of an archbishop means that there's even less chance of finding out what really happened to a Vatican banker 25 years ago. Catholic Masons and the Cosa Nostra are mentioned in speculation, however. Yikes!

I really thought this article about black goo oozing everywhere in L.A. was a parody of The Blob. Apparently it's not. Er, shouldn't someone be concerned about this? This didn't really go so well in The X-Files...

And lastly, for something more pretty than spooky: night maps of the world. I think I've found my new desktop image.